13 October

Nearly 70 years ago. But is this moment now gone, like we often think with time? That it ‘flows’ and what was in the past is now lost forever? Nope. That moment in 1954 is still happening right now as you look at the picture. The picture literally ‘captured’ it. You can’t have a chat with the lady there or hop in one of the cars. But you’re not looking into the past, that’s the past happening again right now. This is why indigenous people often deeply dislike photographs. An example of how this isn’t just abstract stuff. The oldest ever recorded sound wasn’t even meant to be a recorded sound. It was scribbles on a bit of paper, that engineers were able to digitise and recreate the original sound from. (You can hear it here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9a7x48/listen-to-the-eerie-warbles-of-the-oldest-sound-recording-in-history). Photos are the same, they’re carrying that past moment still within them, you do live that moment again as you see them. The past never leaves, it just becomes more or less active. I’m sure we’ll find ways to use them to re-live those past moments in even fuller ways, like with the scribble and sound. The sound of that street for example may be in that photo, and we just haven’t figured out yet how to extract it. That woman too.